"WAITING"
******************************
02.15.2020
-- The SLE train sits on a
ready track
-- As does a passenger
-- Each in there own way
-- Both eventually will
come closer to me
-- From the vanishing point
-- By which time I may well
be elsewhere……..
******************************
--Track 4, New Haven, CT,
(USA)
---Minolta srT101, Rokkor
50-135mm, O56 Filt. 1/125 @ f8.
---Kodak P3200 @ EI 1600 W/
HC110(B) Scanned
© 2020 SASQUA PHOTOGRAPHY
SUPPORTING PRESERVATION
& DOCUMENTATION
G. Roger Clements
(SASS #656 R#135-189b) fb,
fp, f2
Additional Commentary to SASS #656
Rail Roads are something of a cheap shot so the photographer needs to work a bit more to make the image a bit different.
Some are inherently dramatic (Steam trains immediately comes to mind) while others tend to be more retrospective or analytic, as with this picture.
This is a passive picture so any tension or drama must come from within.
I take a 35mm old Minolta SRT101 that I used when I was in Collage and whether the age of the equipment surfaces in the final work as with an old limber etching press I used to print with or not, I don’t know.
It was small simple and rugged and sported wonderful lenses that only fit those cameras.. read cheap but with some they have the co-operation of Leitz, and are wonderful.
I digressed..
A bit..
The film on this particular trip was Kodak’s P3200 that I was exposing at ISO 1600 hoping to reduce the “grainality” a bit.
It really didn’t help enough.
The first thing that happens after you decide that this is something you want to immortalize is which way to position the film, vertically or horizontally, and sometimes I will try the image one way, pull the trigger and then decide that that was the wrong way.
As some of you may know the pillars of my work are grounded in geometry,
Hand in hand with that is my desire to compose images in camera.
An old habit
An architectural habit.
So this picture is full frame with all of its limitations and eccentricities.
Whether it’s a 5x7 view camera or a small 35mm miniature camera once I’ve picked a “victim” I “cruse” the perimeter and try not to encounter too many obstructions.
Some times, as a mater of fact, an obstruction can be a boon as with the image on the left.
Sometimes the format challenges us a bit and we end up have to include a bit more of the foreground or sky than we would like to but that’s part of the overall challenge.
I like to anchor my diagonals in the corners or a least try not to leave them floundering around with no relationship in the picture.
While it’s nice to get a major relationship it works better to get a lesser line as you see in the rails and the overhead wires.
This brings up the all important line of verticals.
I think there are only two was to cope with them
Work with them or totally disregard them.
Anything between the two looks sloppy craftsmanship.
Then I tend to start cropping and hope everything comes back together.
With the “Waiting” photo I started by aligning the edge of my finder with the stairwell and raise or lower my camera until I have it plumb.
Sometimes I have to strike a compromise and end up panning to pick up the vertical I’m interested in and then pan back.
Sometimes the horizontals can even be more elusive as the soffits pitch from one direction or another.
This is where I made some compromises and you can see that the catenary stanchions had a distinct pitch and for to level it would have meant to encompass a much larger part of the stairwell walls and loosed the train or it would have left me standing on an imaginary ladder somewhere just to the left of track 4.
Something like this image from October 2018.
What I did want was the relationship between the train and the passenger and something close to the window line.
I recall that part of my, sometimes apparently spasmodic, dance as I move the camera up and down and up and down that I tested to see what the effect would be if I lowered the view point (I didn’t have too much ability to go up unless I had the aforementioned ladder).
It wasn’t bad for the train but lethal for the suitcase and its owner.
Then there are the elements of happenstance.
The image immediately above was made in the morning and the sun, I felt, complicated the light on the platform whereas the one at the top of this piece was photographed in the afternoon with the platform in a nice co-operative soft gray (6ish to those of you care).
The parts I really cared about was that the M-8 car that served as a lighter backdrop for the “face” of the Shore Line East (SLE) cab-car giving it a bit of contrast.
This might be one of those situation where I might dodge that background a little bit without feeling that I’m violating my “darkroom only” version of PhotoShop.
The other lucky item is (are) the very subtle shadows from the overhead on the side of the car body whose angle relates quite nicely to the safety chevrons on the front of the car.
Just luck…
‘Till next time…
Roger
